


Ostinati

by constellatory



Category: Homestuck, MS Paint Adventures
Genre: F/M, Gen, Magic and shit, alternate universe fic, but there might be hints of spiderbreath, final fantasystuck, grand quests to save the world, in which there is no sburb but there is LE and HIC, it's basically an RPG, steampunkstuck, this is mostly spacetime, will earn the mature rating eventually
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-24
Updated: 2013-06-21
Packaged: 2017-12-15 17:22:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/852063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/constellatory/pseuds/constellatory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mist is blanketing the world. Everything is warping, choking, dying, catastrophically. Dave sets out to find himself; Jade sets out to find the answer; and the world converges on them in its last mad bid to stay alive.</p>
<p>Together, they will chase down the dawn to raise the sun and burn the mist away. Together, they will try to save the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ostinati

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dashery](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dashery/gifts).



_“Anyone can love a thing_ because _. That's as easy as putting a penny in your pocket. But to love something_ despite _.  
To know the flaws and love them too. That is rare and pure and perfect.”_

* * *

 

Dave was eight years old when he broke his arm.

While he'd lain on the ground and tried to breathe through the aching haze, Jade had hovered over him, bright eyes swimming with tears. He'd half expected her to actually start crying, even lifted his arm like he could stop her. Like she was the one that needed comforting. Of course, that arm was the one he'd broken, and the slightest unsteady movement sent a jolt of pain through him so sharp and so sick he nearly threw up. Jade had looked at him with horror for one moment more, then frowned with the severeness she usually reserved for a particularly difficult mechanical doohickey.

"It's okay, Dave! I'll take care of you!"

"What--"

And she hauled him up. Without any real help from him, as his mind was occupied with the business of deciding whether or not he was dying, she pulled his good arm over her shoulders and heaved him to his feet. Together, they stumbled back to her grandpa's house. The old gent opened his door, took in the sight of the two bedraggled young kids, and laughed loudly all the way to the medical kit. His mechanical butler squeaked and hissed behind them, as if the construct, too, found their sorry state amusing.

Dave spent many years trying to cover up the reason he'd broken his arm, because he felt like a loser for letting it happen. Jade teased him about it most every chance she got, once his arm was healed and it no longer bordered on mean to do so. It wasn't particularly cool to fall off a makeshift playground. Especially if that playground was, at least to start, just a bunch of fallen tree branches with a hollowed-out stump for a base all lashed together with rope and vines. Jade had called it "really primitive" and loved it instantly, planning a lifetime of mechanical and steam-powered upgrades ahead. Dave's assessment had been something along the lines of "meh" and "yeah I guess it's okay." He never said anything about the nights he snuck out of bed to go work on it until dawn, doing everything he could to work off her technically brilliant, utterly indecipherable blueprints. Jade probably knew, anyway. His older brother never shut up about the times he had to go looking for the idiot little kid and found him curled on a pile of leaves with three spiders in his hair and a wrench clenched in one fist.

They built it together, with her plans and his dogged determination. And during the winter, after it was finally finished, they would sneak out past sunset and see who could climb to the top fastest even though it was ice-slick. Dave was supposed to be the agile one. Fleet of foot and already gaining the sinew that would turn into proper muscle when he got older. Sometimes, though, agility backfired when it was 9 PM on a wintry evening and he wasn’t looking too closely where he was going.

Nights before and after this particular accident, the winner of their races would get prime star-viewing position. The trees overhead made it hard to glimpse the sky most times of year. It was better during the winter, of course, with only spindly, skeletal branches blocking the way. But even those, when thickly laced, could block the best and most interesting constellations. Only if they lay in a very specific spot could they see clear through a gap in the branches overhead to the immense, milky canopy of stars above. Jade often claimed that spot. Dave had speed, but Jade had conniving, and usually had the foresight to look for the best footholds. Dave always tried to clamber his way up like he'd be burned if he slowed down, clawing and scrabbling like a kitten trying to dig his claws in. He never gave this method up, even long after it became quite clear he wasn't going to win much doing it that way. Jade would laugh and nudge him in the side, chirping _you know Dave, you'd better not be letting me win!_

_Never in a million years, Jade,_ he always said, mostly because it was true. He didn't have to let her. Then he would nudge her back and demand the telescope to make up for his less-ideal spot.

They spent long nights in their secret place, watching the stars wheel overhead. After she couldn’t dream up new gears and clockwork and pulleys to add, Jade started making star maps instead, chattering at Dave about constellations, their relative seasonal positions and navigational properties while he watched the sky. And then, while she was busy charting and drawing and burying herself utterly in celestial cartography, he would start telling her stories. Rambling ordeals about what the figure or animal or mythological monster behind each grouping of stars went through. Grand adventures, stupid pratfalls, comedies and tragedies, nothing was too chimerical or ridiculous for him. Sometimes Jade would become so enraptured by the tales he spun that she'd put down her pencil and her protractor, totally absorbed. And sometimes he'd make her laugh so hard she'd make a mistake and then smack him and make him help her fix it.

Steadily, piece by piece, they came to own the sky. The light and the stars and the infinite darkness were theirs to mold after their own image, their own childish dreams.

In this way, Dave and Jade grew up. Together.

 

* * *

 

Dave was ten years old the first time Jade kissed him.

It had been a somewhat messy affair. After all, without her glasses on, her aim had not been terribly precise, and she'd landed on his cheekbone. He hadn't been expecting it, either, his attention trained on staying perfectly motionless and trying to keep time flowing normally around him while he'd searched for the moment she'd lost them. It was jarring, getting accustomed to using his fast-blooming powers, and sometimes if he didn't hold still as ice it felt like the whole world would splinter beneath him and fall away into an infinitely shattered abyss. 

Also, his nose had been bleeding and she'd started to worry and wanted to shock him out of it in a way that, hopefully, wouldn't break time around their heads and leave them drenched in its confused and misplaced sands.

Of course, the kiss did get him to react. It also made him lose his grip on the timeline, and for one absolutely terrifying moment, both children were dragged into a wavering white place where nothing really existed and no  _when_ was quite real enough to hold.

Then reality snapped back, leaving them out in the field alone. The low drone of bees mixed with the heady scent of the wildflowers all around them, and the sun beat down uncomfortably warm on their necks. This was a place where nature rioted, away from the steady clockwork hum of the town, where the soil was cool beneath the grass and greenery that hid it from the heat, where beetles clambered over their shoes and a fox prowled a dozen yards away. It was all suddenly, comfortingly  _real,_ just the way they'd left it moments ago. 

It had only been moments. Mere, scant seconds. Dave checked just to make sure.

"You're bleeding," she fretted, deeply embarrassed as she reached up to dab at his face with her sleeve.

"You _kissed_ me," Dave countered, flustered beyond belief and only a few shades of red off the color of his own blood staining her formerly-pristine white sleeve. 

"Because you're bleeding!" Jade instantly replied, before realizing that didn't make sense. "I was worried! I thought maybe I could... bring you back? Maybe?"

"With a _kiss?_ " Dave was so perfectly flummoxed that Jade finally started to laugh, relieved and still worried in parts.

"I didn't want to move you and disrupt the time stream! And besides, I ... guess I maybe just sort of wanted to do that?"

For a moment, they stared at one another, with only the hum of the bees to fill up the yawning space between them.

Then Dave had leaned forward on his toes and planted a messy kiss of his own on the tip of her nose. Before she could do anything else, he turned away and grumbled something, something like  _we'll come back for your glasses later,_  and started heading back towards home.

For a moment, Jade considered this kiss. Pressed two fingertips to her nose and blinked, watching his retreating back.

_He kissed me!_

Oh, yes. Yes, he had. And the knowledge brought a grin as broad as the sky to her face as she'd skipped after him, yelping, "Wait, Dave, you know I can't see like this! That's the whole point!!!"

 

* * *

 

Dave's powers came into their own long before any of the others really even saw theirs manifest. Maybe it had something to do with the nature of time, impatient and irresistible. Maybe it had something to do with the nature of  _him,_ the way he always moved too fast and stayed on his toes and couldn't keep the jitter out of his hands. Was it the powers that gave rise to his disposition, or his disposition that inexorably drew those powers to him? Such questions were volleyed over his head when he was still a toddler, as he held an apple in his hands and caused it to erupt from seed to fruit to rot to dust in a matter of moments, only to reverse the process and start again. He'd laugh and laugh, holding up his accomplishments to his brother and chirping  _look, look!_

And his brother had looked. The way he'd smiled was not a thing that Dave had understood at five years old. But it was a thing he would come to comprehend much later in life, when he finally began to grasp the scope and import of his powers. It was the sort of defeated, horrified smile a person wore when they were certain that someone they loved above all else was in for a great deal of hardship. It was the kind of smile one wore to hold back reality for just one more second and preserve the hopeful innocence of the person at whom it was directed. It was a sad kind of smile, a knowing kind of smile. It was an end of the world kind of smile.

As soon as he was old enough to understand that the smile wasn't a hundred percent positive or approving, was a keeper of secrets and a holder of sadness, he hated it, and swore to himself that he'd never wear a smile like it.

But promises one makes to oneself at the age of six are promises one rarely keeps.

Dave was the talk of his little town as he grew up. It was commonplace in this corner of the world for children to grow up gifted with wondrous powers, powers that faded in later adulthood. Typically, however, these powers did not manifest until the child in question was a teenager, or at earliest, a preteen. No one could remember when last powers like Dave's had manifested so young. Of course, no one could remember when last  _time powers_ had manifested in any child. They were rather uncommon. No, _extraordinary_. Dave grew up deeply scrutinized and carefully examined, and he did not like it one bit. Such was the main reason why he cottoned so quickly to Jade's idea of a sanctuary in the woods, a place of their own which adults couldn't touch. He was unspeakably grateful to get away from all those eyes.

His friends watched what he could do with some measure of wonderment. Jade was largely positive about it, and encouraged him always to practice and practice some more. When he protested that he sort of hated his powers and didn't want them, she'd instantly countered with  _that's exactly why you need to learn! If they're going to watch you, then you need to prove you can handle it! And you can handle it, can't you, Dave?_

John's feeling had not been dissimilar. Mostly he'd just rhapsodized over how  _cool_ it was.  _Wish I could do that,_  he'd said one day, grinning dreamily at the clouds. When Dave had shot him a halfway bitter look of reproach, John had held up his hands in a gesture meant to mollify.  _Sorry! I just want my own powers to manifest. That way you won't be alone! Uh, not that you're alone right now. I mean, uh._

Dave had shaken his head, not trying to stave off the smile curving one corner of his mouth, and said it was fine.

Rose, the most practical-minded of the four, agreed with Jade, of course.  _Mother says you ought to be sent away from here,_ she'd coolly commented one day. Ignoring Dave's look of alarm, Rose merely lifted a hand and spread her fingers, gesturing at some faraway ideal.  _Of course I don't agree with her, Dave. But you can see where she's coming from. What if your powers are dangerous?_ Before he could protest, she continued, steely and calm and kind,  _Obviously, you need to prove to them that they aren't. Or, if they are, control them before anyone gets hurt._

So Dave undertook training. Without anyone to teach him, it proved difficult, slow going. Jade accompanied him almost every step of the way, a constant comforting presence and cheerleader. She took meticulous notes on every experiment she designed for him, successful and failed alike, and spent hours helping him piece together patterns and puzzle out trends. Anything to indicate the ways in which his abilities moved, how and  _when_ they affected pieces of the world. She held him up when he broke his arm, kissed him when she feared he was getting lost in his mind, charted the sky they shared together, and smiled when she said his name.

_Dave._

* * *

 

Dave was thirteen years old when he realized two things.

One: he was in love with Jade.

Two: he needed to leave.

He had both realizations roughly at the same time, because both came with a driving urgency and the sensation that the bottom was falling out of his world. His self-taught time manipulation was proving ineffectual, but his powers had not ceased growing. He could warp whole spaces around him, now, moving not only himself but anyone and any _thing_ that happened to be in range through time. He'd only just started to get a handle on how his powers affected him and  _only_ him. Suddenly he found he could no longer restrict that time-loosened field only to himself, and the danger this proved to everyone he cared about was finally too great to ignore. What if he moved one of his friends through time? His brother? What if he did so and it was  _incomplete?_ What if he only brought bits and pieces of people? The question was not  _if_ they would die in such a catastrophic accident, but  _how horribly._ Objects started disappearing around him, or ageing to a state of ancient corrosion as soon as he touched them. Dave's power was phenomenal. Fantastical. Terrible. 

Dave's power was too much for his tiny hometown to safely contain anymore.

As soon as he realized that - that he would need to leave, possibly for years - he realized too that he absolutely did not want to go anywhere. And though he tried to pretend he had to search his heart for the reason why, there really was no need to ask. Because he could see her smile and hear her laugh, and his heart stuttered in his chest, and he cursed a quiet blue streak until he ran out of breath and imagination for hard words to hurl at the universe. Then he broke a pen in half and threw the pieces out of time _._ When they vanished, he realized with a moment of pure, chilling panic that he didn't know when he'd sent them. And even when he desperately reached, commanding all the power he knew how to hold, he could not find them.

His brother found him curled up on the floor of his room, nose bleeding freely, ear canals dark with dried blood, knees pulled to his chest as he stared flatly at the far wall. And, for the first time since he'd decided he was too old to keep rolling with gross displays of familial affection, which was several years ago now, Dave let his brother pick him up and carry him to the kitchen. There, he cleaned Dave off, poured him a measure of brandy, and sat down to discuss what to do next.

When that was decided, of course, he had to tell his friends.

He got Rose and John together first. John started to ask why Jade wasn't there, too, only to be shushed by Rose, who understood.

"You're going  _where?_ " John asked for the third time, disbelief still written into every line of his face.

Dave sighed, dropping his chin to rest on the back of the chair on which he was sitting backwards. "To find the Lord of Time. I  _know_ it's crazy dangerous. But he's taken apprentices before, and who would turn down all this raw talent and mad skill."

Rose said nothing, threading her fingers together in her lap and regarding him seriously. "What I don't understand is why you have to go alone. The Wall is almost three hundred miles from here. And, need I remind you, you're thirteen years old."

"So what," Dave said, lifting a brow. "So are you."

"Yes," Rose replied with uncharacteristic gentleness, "and I'm  _not_ going on a dangerous, possibly deadly mission to control my time manipulation abilities."

"And I can't go with you  _why?"_ John asked, also for the third time, rubbing his forehead in open exasperation.

"What the hell would you even do out there? I mean, if you wanna squire up with me, be my guest, you can shoe my armor and shine my horse or whatever it is squires do--"

" _Dave,_ " John burst out, "I am not going to be your squire. You're not even a knight! And even if you were, I'd just be a knight with you. Because we are friends, and friends don't act as each other's glorified errand boys! Even if you have crazy cool powers and none of the rest of us do."

"Speak for yourself," Rose murmured, and when both boys looked at her sharply, she merely smiled. She had grace enough to make it at least partially sheepish as she idly fiddled with her silver pocket watch. "Sorry. I only just figured it out recently. It isn't exactly easy to tell when dreams stop being dreams and start being  _visions._ "

"You gonna be okay, though?"

"Dave, you flatter me with your concern. But yes. There are at least two other seers in town from whom I can receive guidance and instruction. I will be just fine."

"Then that makes two of us." His friends rolled their eyes at his mulish insistence, but he merely leaned forward, intent, hands balled into fists on his thighs. "No, look. Long as I'm not around anyone I can accidentally drag with me, I can jump through time pretty easily. I'll be at The Wall in an hour. I get this Caliborn guy to train me, show me the ropes of how to safely navigate time without wrecking everyone and everything around me, then skip back through time and come home. You'll barely miss me."

John and Rose traded a look. Before Dave could try to decipher the meaning behind it, John looked back at him and said, "Man, I hope you're right about that."

Then, of course, having passed his first gauntlet, Dave now had to go find Jade. Rose and John both professed ignorance as to her whereabouts, as did her Grandpa, whose eyes crinkled in knowing amusement when Dave came to ask.  _Not red_ , Dave thought sulkily,  _definitely not red in the face like a blushing bride on her oh goddamnit_. Dave fumblingly excused himself and left before he could embarrass himself further. Really, outside of their mutual friends and her grandfather, there was only one place she could be. For a moment, Dave considered time-tripping his way there, arriving in the breath between one instant and the next, making this happen as quickly as he could and getting it over with. But it was only a moment, before he discarded the idea completely. If he knew Jade, she'd want this done the old fashioned way.

So, fastening his favorite red cloak around his shoulders, Dave set off into the woods.

Two hours later, barely winded but irritatedly contemplating the number of burrs and thorns his cape was now probably sporting, Dave finally arrived at their secret place. Their playground. It had received a lot of modifications over the years. Jade had tinkered with it incessantly, taking cues from Dave's infamous robot-constructing brother and her half-mechanic half-hunter grandfather. The top platform was adjustable now, supported on steam pistons that could move it up and down. It had a retractable ladder, controlled by a crank and great bronze gears into which Dave had etched their initials. Yet for all they'd adapted it to suit them as they grew, it had somehow remained static. When they closed their eyes, they saw the wood and rope, not the dully gleaming bronze and metal chains. Despite all their modifications, it still wasn't as cool now as it had been when they were younger. It seemed smaller, less challenging. The gaps between the branches somehow weren't as broad or as window-perfect as either of them remembered when they stretched out atop it. It seemed kind of silly. Kind of childish.

But it was  _theirs,_  it was  _home,_ and as sure as the fall of the sun each day, there was Jade perched atop it, sitting with her legs kicking into open space and head tilted back to watch the last of the fading light drain out of the world.

"Hi, Dave," she said, without looking around.

_Be still, my beating heart,_ some utterly inane and detestable corner of his mind said as he sprang into the air, pressing his feet into well-worn and familiar holds as he vaulted his way up to land, cape fluttering around him, at the top. This made Jade look around, and when she did, she wrinkled her nose.

"Okay, Mr. Cool Guy, I get it. You are super cool! You don't have to show off when it's just the two of us. Gosh." Twisting her body around and getting one knee beneath her, she reached up to push his hood back. "And you don't need that cowl to hide your eyes anymore! Even you admitted it looks pretty dumb when you do that. Besides, I like your eye color. Even if it is weird."

"Wow, thanks, Jade," he murmured, giving her a nudge so he could sit beside her. "Way to bring down a guy's ego. Bam. Lay me out flat like--"

"Dave!" she interrupted. She had returned to her former seat, both legs dangling aimlessly off the platform, but now her hands were gripping the edge too, white-knuckled. "Didn't you come here to talk to me?"

That silenced him instantly. But only for a moment before he ventured, "Jade, how did you--"

"I figured it out days ago, dummy! Before you did, I think." Jade's expression turned pensive as she looked up at the sky again, which was now sliding slowly into a gentle purple hue. "I was really, really hoping we could stop it, somehow. Or figure it out! But three days ago you disappeared a pair of my work goggles and you didn't even realize it. No, Dave, it's fine. Really! Please don't give me that look. If I thought I was in real danger, I would have said something. It was just some goggles." She paused, absently brushing a hand over her hair. "But I guess you figured it out, too. That eventually it won't just be goggles."

Despite his repeated attempts to protest, Dave found that, once he was given the opportunity to respond, he had nothing to say. Instead he just stared out into the darkening trees where there was nothing much to see.

"This is stupid."

"Sorta," Jade agreed.

Silence.

"I'll, uh, be back pretty soon," Dave tried. Faltered. "Before you can miss me, in the blink of an eye, etcetera, time puns--"

Jade laughed. "Dave!"  
  
"Yeah, I know. Sorry, don't have my best material on me today. Maybe when I come back I'll have something better for you."

For a long moment, Jade just looked at him, and Dave, after a pause, looked right back. Her eyes were still so breathtakingly green.

The first time Dave kissed Jade, he was thirteen years old. And this time, it was a real, actual kiss. As much as thirteen year olds can really _kiss_ when they stand on the cusp of something they can barely understand, grappling with sorrow and the pending loss of all they know. It was a sad thing, tasting of time and tears. It was a warm thing. It was a movement, a motion, that held within it all their feelings for each other that they'd never known how to express out loud. Feelings of joy, laughter, togetherness; feelings of shy fondness, real love, and uncertain wishing. Many feelings, all confused, yet green and new. They were so young. So unlearned in what it meant to actually hurt. This, maybe - this hesitant press of lips was the single most painful thing either of them had ever known. There would be more painful things still, in their future, in the nebulous and unknown years to come. But this precise moment, with the chill of fall settling around their bodies, with the stars beginning to shine out overhead, with their hands searching for purchase on each other's hair and shoulders, gave them the sharpest and most beautiful thing either of them had ever tried to keep.

"I'm not waiting for you," she said, several quiet aeons later after they broke apart. There were tears in her eyes and a hardness to the set of her mouth.

"What? But--"

"Nope! I don't care what you say. I'm not going to just sit here. I'll be busy. Really busy! Maybe you'll have to be the one that comes to find me, Dave!"

Dave considered that for a moment. "Yeah," he agreed, nodding his head. "Okay. I'll come find you. By the time I get done, I'll be knighted as a newly minted master of time. I'll ride up on my silver horse and--"

"Dave, horses don't come in silver."

"It's in the rules, Jade. Time royalty get sweet steeds. The sweetest in all the land.  _Silver stallion,_ Jade. I'll sweep you up on it and we'll go riding off into the sunset--"

"Yeah right!" Jade smacked his shoulder, finally grinning, trying to push through all her feelings and make her smile less watery than she was sure it looked. "If anyone is going to rescue anyone, Dave Strider, I'm going to be the one saving you."

Dave captured her hand, holding it between them for a moment before realizing he wasn't sure what he wanted to do with it. Then he let go, and smiled.

"You're on."

 

* * *

 

He departed early the next morning. Long before anyone ought to be awake. Before the sun had managed to touch the far horizon. He shouldered a bag of minimal provisions and took the road that led west.

Once out of eyeshot of the village, he stopped, concentrated, and slid sideways into the flow of time. To any watchers, it would seem as if Dave Strider had simply disappeared.

Despite his careful preparations, his determination to leave before anyone could see him go, Jade Harley stood on her roof and watched him go, telescope tightly in hand. Her face was stoic, and her chin held high. She watched until he was just a shape, a dark blur on the road. She watched until the blur seemed to shift and simply disappeared. She stood even after that. She stood until the sun came up and lit her face in hard gold.

Then, when her feet were numb and her knees were sore and she could stand there no more, Jade shut her eyes and focused very hard. In the next instant, she was standing on the grass beside her window, instead of atop the roof. Her teleportation made an audible _pop_ sound, heard by no one except her. Once safely down - and certain all her appendages were in the correct spots - Jade went to go work furiously on her latest invention. This one was a steam-powered clock.

A week later, Dave's brother received a letter. This letter was unsigned, and contained only three words.

_Three years._

_Sorry._

It was couriered by the most marvelous mechanical sparrow, a tiny golden thing that moved with incredible realism as it hopped into Jade's palm and tilted its head sideways to gaze up at her, clicking and whirring. When given missives to take back, it simply pecked at the letters and cheeped, a tiny, tinny music-box chime that came from its belly. No amount of coaxing convinced it to attempt a return trip.

It was Jade's companion the very next morning as she tapped on Rose and John's windows, stirring them from sleep before dawn.

Best get an early start. After all, they all three had powers they needed to work on manifesting, now. They couldn’t let Dave get too far ahead, could they?

Not if they were going to go catch him.

**Author's Note:**

>  _Ostinato_ : a constantly recurring melodic fragment, usually in the same part at the same pitch.  
>  _Ostinati_ : the plural thereof.
> 
> Chapter quote: from _The Name of the Wind_ , by Patrick Rothfuss.
> 
> As long as this chapter was already, the next is bound to be much longer, so it might take some time. Thanks for reading. :*


End file.
